We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata slogan of the day

The humbling of the WTO not only worsens economic prospects for the developing countries (as well as for the rest of the world) but also shifts the balance of global political power from poor to rich – perhaps decisively, and who knows for how many years. That is what the developing countries’ champions are so busy celebrating.
The Economist

Samizdata quote of the day


I want to be plain about this. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein was justified whether or not there was reluctance to authorize it. … No one could say it is wrong to overthrow a homicidal maniac. The Security Council sat on its hands for 10 years.

Don’t believe those who say they aren’t there just because we haven’t found them. Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Iraq certainly did have weapons of mass destruction. Trust me. I held some in my own hands.

— Former UN weapons inspector Richard Butler, via Glenn, to whom Samizdata remains loyal.

Samizdata quote of the day


My name is Salam Pax and I am addicted to blogs. Some people watch daytime soaps, I follow blogs. I follow the hyperlinks on the blogs I read. I travel through the web guided by bloggers. I get wrapped up in the plots narrated by them. I was reading so many blogs I had to assign weekdays for each bunch, plus the ones I was reading daily. It is slightly voyeuristic, especially those really personal blogs: day-to-day, mundane stuff which is actually fascinating; glimpses of lives so different, and so much amazing writing. No politics, just people’s lives. How they deal with pain or grief, how they share their happy moments with anybody who cares to read.

— Salam Pax, summarising how quite a lot of us actually feel, writing in the Guardian. Actually, go read the whole thing. The descriptions of how the Ba’athists attempted to censor the internet and how people got around it that follow are quite interesting.

Samizdata quote of the day

This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future.
– Attributed to Adolf Hitler, 1935

Samizdata slogan of the day

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. Mencken

Tony Blair’s brother

I don’t think philosophically there’s a meeting of minds between Ayn Rand and Our Glorious Leader, Tony Blair:

I am not my brother’s keeper. – Ayn Rand

I am my brother’s keeper.Tony Blair

You might think that being your brother’s keeper is fine. But when Tony Blair says that he is his brother’s keeper, what he actually means is that he wants to force everyone else to be this. The statement isn’t about him at all. If he really subscribed to the moral code he advocates, surely he would donate most of his income to the poor. Then again, when you hear middle-class socialists demanding higher taxes, and you ask them how much extra they personally should pay, they often reply back that only “the rich” – people richer than they are – should pay more.

Samizdata slogan of the day

Judging cultures is not the same as judging races. One’s race is unchosen; no-one can be condemned for membership of a racial group. However, culture is chosen, so a person can be condemned for their acceptance of an immoral culture. The equivocation of culture with race is one of the commonest forms of racism today: it is based on the racist view that one’s race determines one’s ideas and outlook.
Andrew Medworth

Samizdata quote of the day

It would be helpful if you could indicate your city or town or, at least, your state, province or country. Failing that, your continent or hemisphere will do. If you seriously think Arianna Huffington is the voice of the people, do let us know what planet….

— Mark Steyn’s advice to people who would send him e-mail.

Samizdata slogan of the day

Thinking has been given a bad press. Feeling did not devise a law of gravity: thinking did.
Madsen Pirie, quoted in a Guardian article on ’emotional literacy’

Samizdata slogan of the day

This constant intervention by government in tasks that belong to the
individual must cease … Day by day the doctrines and practices of a
paternal government are speciously and tentatively expanding over the
country, and the habit of popular thought is unhappily becoming
accustomed to them.
– Senator Thos S. Bayard to Congress, April 1884

(with thanks to David Goldstone)

Samizdata slogan of the day

When I leave university and get a job, I want to live and die by my own efforts, but if they are especially productive, I want to enjoy the fruits of my labour without being penalised by the state for my success. I don’t want to see people starve, or to go without basic needs, but rather than having the state steal my money and use it to pay them to stay poor, I want them to have the opportunity to work, earn and live for themselves. I also want, through free charity, to be able to decide for myself in whose aid the money I donate will be spent: perhaps I might find the starving Iraqi child a more deserving cause than the perpetually-unemployed Dundonian who can’t afford the monthly satellite television subscription; perhaps I won’t think that the fact that one has been born in closer geographical proximity to me gives them a greater claim to the money I worked for. I don’t want these choices to be taken from me and decided centrally, by those whose very jobs require them to please as many local people as they can.

David Bean, part of the St Andrews Liberty Club’s new committee, writing on The Liberty Log

Here is something rather marvelous…

…that can be found over on www.bureaucrash.com

Why do some people wear pictures of mass murderers on their t-shirts?

Which reminds me of my favourite picture of Che Guevara, that achingly cool totalitarian pop icon…

Sic semper tyrannis

As you sow, so shall you reap